Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Anti-Gay? (Score 5, Insightful) 1069

I believe homosexual acts are a sin.

Fine. Many people believe eating bacon is a sin.

I believe homosexuality should not be promoted.

Fine. I don't think boxing should be promoted. Doesn't seem to stop them.

I oppose gay marriage.

Here is where it is not-so fine. If you are actively trying to suppress two consensual adults from entering into a mutually beneficial contract because of their gender, you are anti-gay. Maybe you're ok with civil unions; that makes you less anti-gay and just deluded in believing that separate-but-equal will work this time.

Graphics

Nvidia's Fermi Architecture Debuts; Nouveau Driver Already Working 70

crookedvulture writes Nvidia has lifted the curtain on reviews of its latest GPU architecture, which will be available first in the high-end GeForce GTX 680 graphics card. The underlying GK104 processor is much smaller than the equivalent AMD GPU, with fewer transistors, a narrower path to memory, and greatly simplified control logic that relies more heavily on Nvidia's compiler software. Despite the modest chip, Nvidia's new architecture is efficient enough that The Tech Report, PC Perspective, and AnandTech all found the GeForce GTX 680's gaming performance to be largely comparable to AMD's fastest Radeon, which costs $50 more. The GTX 680 also offers other notable perks, like a PCI Express 3.0 interface, dynamic clock scaling, new video encoding tech, and a smarter vsync mechanism. It's rather power-efficient, too, but the decision to focus on graphics workloads means the chip won't be as good a fit for Nvidia's compute-centric Tesla products. A bigger GPU based on the Kepler architecture is expected to serve that market." Read on below for good news (at least if you prefer Free software) from an anonymous reader. Update: 03/22 19:35 GMT by T : Mea culpa -- that headline should say "Kepler," rather than Fermi; HT to Dave from Hot Hardware (here's HH's take on the new GPU).

Comment Re:dongle (Score 1) 635

No, they're not. There are most systems use multiple hand-written checks and guards that are then augmented by automated diversity techniques (imagine all the transformations your compiler does, applied randomly and iteratively) so that each of those checks is a unique code sequence. Of course the cracker can try to de-obfuscate them, or look for "essential actions" ala virus detection, but it really is an arms race similar to detecting virii. And if you think the virus-checkers are winning or inherently have the upper hand, I have a bridge to sell you.

Comment Re:ECMA not a dynamically typed language or someth (Score 1) 330

Technically, what has to be proved is "for all code paths we can identify if the value is not an int." And then it can provide a backoff/error handler case when the value isn't an int. The issue is that typically the the error handler is significantly slower than doing it the naive way. So there is a cut-off point where the optimization because a net win, and generally you need some amount of profiling/feedback to correctly identify that cut-off.

Comment Re:Should we give (l)users control? (Score 1) 1634

First, the FSF needs to convince us average users need to have control. Why should average users have control over their computer? Isn't this what got us the virus nightmare in Windows?

Uh, because they bought the device? I think the burden is on the other side for taking away control.

I don't think Mac OS X will ever go away from giving you the control it does (and it is quite nice), but Mac OS X is not appropriate on a device like the iPad.

Why isn't OS X appropriate? What is the difference between this and an Air? I saw the presentation, the device sat between the iPod touch and the macbook. What is one OS appropriate and the other isn't?

In fact, I would compare the iPad to the upcoming yet-to-be-made Chromium netbook. The vision Google laid out for their device is pretty much exactly the same as Apple's vision of the iPad. Except that Apple is actually _less_ connected in to your device than Google would be.

"Google's doing it too!" is not a good argument.

Attacking Apple's products is one thing. Why not create your own open source tablet to compete, and let the marketplace decide?

Well, I'm sure it will: https://thejoojoo.com/, though the market doesn't always act rationally, and perhaps the FSF is trying to raise awareness about the freedoms people are giving up for Apple's style.

Programming

Submission + - How Microsoft dropped the ball with developers (arstechnica.com) 1

cremou writes: As part of a series on how Microsoft bungled the transition from XP to Vista, Ars Technica looks at some unfortunate decisions Microsoft made that have made Windows an unpleasant development platform. 'So Windows is just a disaster to write programs for. It's miserable. It's quite nice if you want to use the same techniques you learned 15 years ago and not bother to change how you do, well, anything, but for anyone else it's all pain... And it's not just third parties who suffer. It causes trouble for Microsoft, too. The code isn't just inconsistent and ugly on the outside; it's that way on the inside, too. There's a lot of software for Windows, a lot of business-critical software, that's not maintained any more. And that software is usually buggy. It passes bad parameters to API calls, uses memory that it has released, assumes that files live in particular hardcoded locations, all sorts of things that it shouldn't do.'

Slashdot Top Deals

1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents

Working...